


Fearful Symmetry

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: Artemis goes deep under cover. Kaldur brings her back to the surface.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/gifts).



> Happy birthday to knight_tracer! She asked me for Artemis and Kaldur discussing their supervillain daddy issues and I did my best. Let's see if I can write something modern for once (spoilers: I can't)
> 
>  
> 
> _And what shoulder and what art_  
>  _Could twist the sinews of thy heart?_

In hindsight, it had been coming for a while. Ar- Tigress, she was _Tigress_ now - was under far more pressure than she was used to dealing with which, considering she was a teen vigilante from a family of criminals working Spec Ops for the freaking Justice League, was an awful lot of pressure.

But being Artemis wasn’t a full-time job. She could be the hero and the high schooler and the daughter, shedding each identity when the secrets and the truths became too much.

Tigress was Tigress was Tigress.

There was no sunlight on that awful submarine. No respite from the dark and cold and damp, from the lying, the violence, the constant jockeying for power and position.

And the worst part was how easily it came.

She was her father’s daughter, always had been, always would be, and Black Manta’s soldiers saw the predator in her and kept a respectful distance. Those that didn’t soon learnt better.

The loser working the bag on the other side of the practice room had been making herself a problem for almost a week, disobeying her orders and questioning her competence when Tigress wasn’t quite out of earshot. It was either insubordination or a crush and Tigress didn’t have the patience for either.

“You want something?” the woman - she’d made a point of not learning her name because it wasn’t like Tigress would _care_ \- asked.

Artemis would wait. “My turn,” Tigress said and it was all so freaking high school but she couldn’t back down. Her father wouldn’t have.

The woman gave the bag one final jab that set it rattling on its chain and stepped back. “Have at it, little girl. Unless you’d like a real workout.” She flexed.

“The bag would be more of a challenge.” Affecting casualness, Tigress spun and lashed out with a punch so hard the bag rattled on its chains and the canvas split. At least that was what it looked like - there were studs sewn into her gloves, for delivering poisons or just messing her opponent’s face up real bad, and she didn’t think this thug was going to examine the rips close enough to see the fabric had been cut rather than split. It was the kind of pointless, wasteful showmanship her father loved.

“Should I be scared? You got no powers, little girl.” That was true enough, and the woman had ten years and fifty pounds on her.

And everyone else in the gym was looking at them, men and women Tigress had to lead. She stepped back, onto the mats in the middle of the room. “Who needs them? Come at me.”

The woman rolled her shoulders, laughed as though this was only a game, as though there wasn’t too much hanging on this for both of them, and then snapped a punch at her head.

Tigress leant back out of range and screw doing the smart thing; winning wasn’t enough, she had to win and make it look _good_. She let her momentum take her over backwards, caught herself on her hands and kicked over back onto her feet in a nippy little somersault.

The disadvantage of a stunt like that was the recovery time - the woman had already closed the distance, was already swinging at her.

No time or space to dodge again. Tigress stepped inside the arc of the blow and caught her wrist. The woman grunted and tried to pull back, her right leg straightening and Artemis would have hesitated but Tigress stamped down hard upon the knee.

The tendons tore with a crack loud as a gunshot.

Tigress let her go and she sagged to the mats, her every breath a whining pant.

_You tried, baby girl. You can fight Jade, you can fight me, but you can’t fight who you are._

There were murmurs all about, but already they were edging away, pretending like nothing had happened. One man stepped forwards and Tigress backed off a little, enough that he could drag the woman up and sling her arm about his shoulder. She grunted in pain and sent Tigress a look with all the poison leached out by pain and fear.

 _Goo_ \- not good! Her father would be proud of that and it hurt like she’d swallowed fishhooks.

_You belong with us._

She had an act to maintain though. “Anyone else?” Ought to have said it with his easy confidence, but it came out strained and snappish.

“Me,” said Kaldur'ahm, stepping into the room. He must have seen everything on the cameras. Damn.

“This should be fun,” she said, slipping into Cheshire’s purr, and part of her was screaming because Kaldur was her friend and she didn’t want to hurt him (because Kaldur had _killed_ her the last time they’d done this) and part of her was laughing because it _would_ be fun.

She drew her sword and flicked it around in a pointless flourish. He conjured his.

“Bring it.” God but she missed M’gann’s telepathy - they could choreograph something beautiful with that. They could have a freaking conversation without the certain knowledge they were spied on.

Kaldur stayed where he was, sword held in a middle guard, bare feet planted upon the mat and yeah, she was on edge but she wasn’t off her game enough to charge right into his weapon. She circled him, light upon the balls of her feet, shifting her weight back to seem further from him than he was.

A neat step in brought her close enough to snap a cut at his chest.

He blocked - she’d not been expecting otherwise - took the center line and retaliated with a thrust aimed at her face. It shouldn’t have been a problem but his sword split and flowed around hers and she almost lost her blade as she threw herself backwards.

Another swing and when she tried to parry the top half of his sword burst under her blade, raining down on her as water, and suddenly Kaldur was holding a dagger, jabbing in at her midriff. She hopped back again, just ahead of the blade.

The wall was at her back and she could duck sideways, kick that stand of weights down at him and regroup. But she’d known him long enough to recognize that Stern Leader face, to make a split second decision and hold her ground as he slammed into her.

He knocked her back into the wall, not even hard enough to wind her, and it was that knowledge that kept her from struggling, confirmed when he hissed, “We’re in the camera’s blindspot. What’s wrong? Are you compromised?”

“Emotionally, maybe. Kaldur, I don’t know if I can _do_ this.”

His Stern Leader face was still firmly in place. “You’ve held up admirably under the pressure. I certainly can’t condone injuring a woman so badly but no doubt it has cemented your position within the-”

“I’m not worried about whether I can play the part convincingly,” she hissed. “The problem is I’m _too_ good at it.”

“Cheshire.”

“And my mother. My father,” she kept struggling just in case someone came in, but for once she didn’t feel like fighting. “This is the life I was born for.”

“It’s not the one you chose,” he said, like it was clear cut as the choice between Atlantis and the surface and maybe she was being unfair but right then she didn’t give a damn.

“Still ended up in the same place, didn’t I? Just by a different route. Sooner or later your father will ask something of us we can’t do and _that’s_ not a choice I want to make, Kaldur!”

She got her right hand about his right wrist, left hand to the elbow and slammed on an arm bar, turning so that it was him pressed to the wall.

Kaldur struggled but not hard. “I do not think he will. My father’s selected our missions carefully. He does not want to push us too far too fast. He does not want us to fail.”

Abductions and industrial sabotage, but no assassinations. Not yet. Maybe he _did_ care.

But that was bitter too.

“He loves you,” she said, and her foot to the back of his knee dropped him to the ground. “I always told myself that my father didn’t love me because he was a bad person. But your father loves you.”

Kaldur grunted. “He loves the idea of me. He does not know me and never will. No more than your father knows you.”

She let him go and took a step back. He _didn’t_ know her, never had, and none of his sly insinuations, his ‘baby girl’s counted for a thing. She didn't believe that. Not even slightly. But if she repeated that enough then she might come to believe it. “When did you get so freaking wise, Kaldur?”

“It’s very easy to see the path from outside the maze,” he said, which wasn’t a very good metaphor and wasn’t a great answer either but fine, she’d take what she could get.

Tigress looked around at the wet floor and the leaking sand. “Think your dad’s gonna take the punching bag out of my paycheck?”

“Of course he will. Artemis,” he said, so soft and low he might as well have mouthed it.

 _Artemis_. Right.

**Author's Note:**

> This is comics so Unnamed Thug Lady is _fine_ BUT NEVER ACTUALLY DO THAT TO SOMEONE'S LEG, it is a good way to cripple them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Fearful Symmetry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279857) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




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